


don't call anyone that

by youcouldmakealife



Series: but always in tandem [8]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t be cute, like that didn’t have anything to do with the fight you got in last game,” Quincy says.</p><p>“Am I my partner’s keeper?” Robbie says, then, “I’m always cute, thank you very much.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't call anyone that

Robbie’s sulking. He’ll admit he’s sulking, because like — you get into a fight in front of close to 20,000 live spectators and who the fuck knows how many people watching on TV, you want to win that fight. Well, you probably want to win any fight regardless of viewers, but the point stands. More importantly, you don’t want to look like a fucking loser during it, and Robbie watched the fight, okay. It was sad. He was sad.

Worst thing is that Robbie’s still basically wearing his defeat on his face, sporting a massive shiner that looks just as bad as it feels. It got shiner-er as the days progressed, so when he walks into the room before their home game against the Islanders he catches at least three winces and Whelan trying to hide a laugh.

“I hate you, Wheels,” Robbie says.

“I didn’t say anything,” Wheels protests, but he thought things. He thought things.

“Ouch,” Georgie says when he sees him. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Robbie says flatly.

“Can you even see out of that eye?” Georgie asks. Robbie can’t, actually, not perfectly. He thinks it’ll be fine — he’s got great spatial sense that’ll hopefully compensate for the wonky depth perception. He’s a little worried about his peripheral right now, but not worried enough to go tell medical. If they’re not asking, he’s not telling. He’s not missing a game because of some jackoff douchebag homophobe.

“Fuck off, Georgie,” Robbie says, and Georgie sighs loudly but doesn’t ask any other stupid shit.

They took Benson off the first line, probably because he singlehandedly assured the Caps a win they would have likely had anyway. That means he won’t be on Chaps’ ass, but also means Robbie and Georgie are paired against that yappy fucking dog all game. He starts on Robbie early with the same sort of shit he’d been spewing about David, the kind of bully who thinks he found a sore spot and is going to keep pressing on it until the bruise goes deep. Except Robbie’s sure as shit not interested in picking another fight, and honestly, Robbie’s not all that touchy about the dudes thing, so it’s not like it’s working. It’s like…just something Robbie is, whatever, Benson could be yelling ‘you have brown eyes, hah!’ for all Robbie fucking cares about Benson’s opinion on his hypothetical (to Benson) dude fucking.

It still gets on his nerves, but that’s the quantity and not the quality of the chirps. Robbie’s frankly amazed Benson can breathe when he talks through the whole fucking game: that’s some massive lung capacity there.

It doesn’t help help Robbie’s mood that he fucks up badly in the first, loses sight of Berg for one fucking second and then Berg’s got the puck behind Crane. Crane gives Robbie some massive stinkeye after, and for good reason. Robbie should have had Berg. Robbie didn’t have Berg because his right fucking eye is half swollen shut thanks to that piece of shit that’s still on him, transparently trying to pick a fight, because obviously he knows he’d win a rematch too.

Benson gets his fight in the end, though Benson sure as shit didn’t want this one. Robbie’s not close enough to hear what goes on, what Benson says to Georgie, and by the time he’s within arms’ length he’s getting pushed back by an Isle and Benson’s already bleeding.

It really, really isn’t a fair fight. Maybe Benson wiped the floor with Robbie, but they’re basically the same size, and Robbie’s fully willing to admit he fought like shit. Practice makes perfect, or whatever, and Robbie had a grand total of nil. Now he’s got a grand total of ‘this practice has taught me never to do it ever again’, which is useful life experience. 

So yeah, Benson took Robbie down without breaking a sweat, but Georgie? Benson looks like a fucking kid next to him, and the fight looks unfair as fuck from the outside. Probably from Benson’s point of view too, since he lands maybe a couple body shots before his plan of attack switches more to a ‘protect yourself and hope they break it up before you die’. 

There’s some cheering even as they break it up and escort them both to their respective penalty boxes, but it’s not the kind of cheering you get from the true brawls and brawlers, not even the kind Robbie and Benson got. It’s this muted ‘we wanted a fight but what we got was Goliath beating on David, and that just makes us feel shitty for wanting a fight at all’. Maybe Robbie’s projecting. He definitely should be more satisfied to see that asshole take a punch, but now he’s just left wondering how fucking awful Benson’s comment was, because Georgie’s got a damn good hold over his temper, doesn’t lose it easy, and he’s pretty serious about the ‘pick on someone your own size’ shit. Hell, when he does fight he usually manages to find one of the dudes bigger than him.

“That’s fucking enough, Robbie,” Captain Q hisses, coming up behind him while juggling Georgie’s helmet, stick, and gloves. Robbie’s kind of impressed. He could take that show on the road.

“I didn’t do anything,” Robbie protests. 

“Don’t be cute, like that didn’t have anything to do with the fight you got in last game,” Quincy says.

“Am I my partner’s keeper?” Robbie says, then, “I’m always cute, thank you very much.”

Quincy gives him a very impressive glower before skating over to hand Georgie his shit. Georgie accepts it with a fucking _smile_ , looking as perfectly perfect as ever, which kind of puts into perspective how fucking bad Robbie is at fighting, wow. He always kind of knew Georgie let him win sometimes in play fights, but Georgie just took Benson down without breaking a sweat, so. Yet another blow to Robbie’s poor, tattered ego.

Benson doesn’t seem to take the whole getting his ass kicked with grace, quits yapping and starts trying to fuck guys up in the third. It doesn’t seem to work out any better for him — he ends up sitting in the box after trying to railroad Crane, who’s muttering about wanting to get a shot at him himself. Robbie’s with the dude. Sadly aware Crane would definitely do a better job than Robbie, but hey. Goalies are vicious: Robbie wouldn’t be surprised if Crane did even better than Georgie if he got a shot at it. 

Next time Benson touches the puck after the goalie interference the crowd gives him the collective middle finger with a boo, and the irony is so fucking perfect it singlehandedly saves Robbie’s shitty fucking day.

“That’s a beautiful fucking sound,” Robbie yells over at Benson on the bench when he’s finished his shift, and Chaps, beside him, lets out the ugliest, most endearing laugh Robbie’s ever heard. Note for the future, Roberto: use your wits, not your fists, it hurts a fuckton less and it makes the kid as happy.

“Fucker’s hurting tonight,” Georgie says, and when David turns his grin on Georgie, Robbie looks away.

*

Of all the things Robbie would expect from a house party, Georgie practically pushing a girl into his arms is…not high on the list. Below Georgie pushing a dude into his arms, for sure, and yet, here Robbie is, staring up at a girl who’s taller than him in heels and who looks exactly like at least three girls Georgie’s hooked up with. Georgie doesn’t even seem to have a type, he’s just prolific.

“Cassie, Robbie, Robbie, Cassie,” Georgie says, and Robbie thinks it might be time for a serious refresher in the whole ‘needs a dick’ part of their conversation about hooking up, because apparently Georgie didn’t get the whole ‘so, so gay’ thing, before Georgie adds, “I think you guys are in the same economics class?”

They are, actually. Georgie promptly disappears to probably go find someone else to get his dick in — Robbie thinks he broke up with his girlfriend, but if he hasn’t, hooking up around mutual friends will definitely do the job for him — but it could be worse. She’s happy to bitch about it and listen to his bitching, which is awesome, because there is _so much_ bitching to be done. It occurs to Robbie that Georgie basically handled him, knew he wasn’t going to hook up so hooked him up with like…scholarship instead.

Georgie’s kind of smart sometimes. Robbie needs to quit forgetting that. 

He could be offended, and he thinks about it for a minute, but Cassie — Cassidy, actually — exchanges numbers with him for study sessions without the whole wink wink bullshit, so he figures he’ll let it slide. Robbie doesn’t know anyone in that class, and she knew her shit well enough when they were talking about it, so like, if she’s that good off the cuff, she’s not stupid either. Robbie should probably take her up on that. Fuck knows he needs some help, there.

She follows up on it the next morning too, sending a text at some godawful time in the morning Robbie was busy sleeping off his hangover, asks if he’s free to study that afternoon. Which is like. In an hour, actually. Robbie gives her an affirmative, chugs a bottle of Gatorade, grabbing lunch and a giant coffee on his way, and makes it to where she said only a little bit late.

Unlike Robbie, Cassidy apparently does know people in their class, and Robbie unexpectedly walks right into a study group. He’s not complaining or anything — Cassidy knows her shit, as expected, and so do the other two. They make a really weird group of four, though — there’s Cassidy, who is like the stereotype of a sorority girl without actually being in a sorority that Robbie knows of, Tara, who’s rocking some ‘Tim Burton is my role model’ shit, and Francis, who looks like he maybe he was on his way to philosophy class and confused the rooms and walked into economics? And also Robbie’s 99.99% sure he’s into dudes. Like, he may have a decent knack for picking that up because maybe there’s a gay dude like…sonar signal you pick up once you jerk off a dick that isn’t your own, Robbie doesn’t know, but he’s also pretty sure that everyone would pick up on Francis unless they’re willfully ignoring it. 

He doesn’t even save the old man name with Frankie or something. Like, Robbie knows what it’s like to be saddled with one of those old school names, but, you know. That’s why he went with Robbie. When he thinks about it, though, Francis fits. He doesn’t look like a Frankie, which would look like…Robbie guesses like a Robbie, in his head. He’s got that kind of calm cool collected thing you don’t usually see in guys their age, like…poise. He’s got poise. The kind where you wonder if they’d ever let loose or if they’d like…come silently without a hair out of place and then carry on with their days. 

Not that Robbie’s thinking about that.

Francis and Tara both looked kind of unimpressed Cassidy brought him, but they’re not rude, exactly, just…business like, which is fine by Robbie if that means he can stress less about this fucking course. By the end of the study session Robbie feels slightly less panicky about the midterm looming over him like a black cloud of potential failure, and has already agreed to reconvene next Sunday. 

He’s also decided he already likes Cassidy about ten times more than he did when Georgie was shoving her at him, a pretty girl in a short skirt like every other pretty girl in a short skirt around them. She’s swapped out the short skirt for yoga pants today, hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she’s still pretty, just. Kind of a dork. Her and Tara spent like twenty minutes talking about some weird movie and laughing a lot at nothing while Robbie and Francis determinedly ignored each other, because Robbie’s sure Francis thinks he’s some homophobic jock shithead. Like, Robbie can’t even be offended by the assumption. Francis is mostly right: Robbie’s just more cocksucking jock shithead than homophobic jock shithead. Robbie fully embraces his shithead-ness.

“He’s cute, huh?” Cassidy asks him when they’re walking back from the library. Apparently they live in the same building. Robbie never noticed, but then, it’s a big building, and there are like a dozen girls who could be her twin, so.

“Huh?” Robbie says.

“Francis,” she says.

Robbie is kind of stumped how to tell a girl ‘he’s…definitely not going to be into you, sorry, I’m sure dudes usually are’. 

“I don’t know if you’re his type,” he lands on after a moment, then mentally pats himself on the back. Diplomatic, not outing a fellow gay dude, truthful. She’ll probably assume it’s because of the whole…all that she’s got going on. Good work, Robbie!

Cassidy, unexpectedly, laughs. “I meant for you, but thanks for the info I definitely already knew.”

“Wait up,” Robbie says, and quits walking. “I don’t know what Georgie told you—”

“Georgie didn’t tell me anything,” Cassidy says.

“Good,” Robbie says. “Um.”

“You spent half the time looking at him,” Cassidy says. “If you’re trying to hide it you’re not very good at it.”

“I’m not hiding or anything,” Robbie says. “Just—”

“Don’t tell anyone?” Cassidy says.

“Yeah, that,” Robbie says.

Cassidy runs two fingers across her mouth.

“Did you just zip your lips?” Robbie asks. “You are so lame.” 

“You want me to like…scope that out for you?” Cassidy says. 

“The fuck does that mean?” Robbie says, then, “No. Whatever it does mean, no.”

“Okay,” she says, in this tone of voice that Robbie _does not trust_ , and starts walking again, talking to him over her shoulder. “He’s single.”

“I don’t care,” Robbie says, walking faster to catch up. She’s shorter than him, she should not be able to walk so fucking fast. “Please note that I don’t care.”

“He was looking at you too,” Cassidy says.

“Probably glaring at the jock infiltration,” Robbie says.

“Really not,” Cassidy says.

“Wait, really?” Robbie says.

Cassidy laughs. “But you don’t care.”

“I…could care,” Robbie says, then, “Okay, the laughing’s just mean, now.”

“Sorry,” she says, and doesn’t sound sorry _at all_. “So, scoping?”

“I have no idea what that means,” Robbie says. “But like…you won’t…”

“I’m subtle,” she says.

“Chicks always are,” Robbie says, then, “Ow, what the fuck was that for?”

“Don’t call me a chick,” Cassidy says, then, “Don’t call anyone a chick.”

“Fuck, okay, sorry,” Robbie says. “ _Ow_. How the fuck do you pinch so hard?”

“Three sisters,” Cassidy says. Robbie can’t really verify if that’s a good excuse one way or the other, so he’ll let it stand. “Chick power,” she adds, and Robbie has no idea if that’s sarcastic or like…taking the word back or whatever, and is not interested enough in the answer to risk getting pinched again.

“Now,” Cassidy says. “What would you say you look for in a guy?”

“I regret this already,” Robbie says, meaning it with every atom of his being, and yet still somehow finds himself answering the fucking question.


End file.
